Easy to pick up and play. Robust tool set lets you craft robot behemoths. Free to play.

Cons

Can take very long to join a match. Very simplistic visuals. Suffers from bugs as a result of its early access state.

Bottom Line

Robocraft is an addicting lobby-based robot/vehicle shooter. Despite a few balance quirks and the glacial matchmaking, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had.

Robocraft tasks you with spending time in a hangar, connecting cubes and polygons of varying shapes, to create a blocky battle-bot, which you can then take into combat against other players. Robocraft possesses a Lego-like charm that is made all the sweeter thanks to the free-to-play game model. Server issues and bugs can darken the experience somewhat, but Robocraft offers enough content to keep you occupied for a very long time. Note: Robocraft is a PC release that's part of Valve's Steam Early Access program, so the game isn't in its final form.

Similar Products

Cubes, Blocks, and Robots You start by laying down blocks to create the robot of your dreams, or selecting a preset vehicle to modify. The game's practice mode takes your robot to a desert-like testing zone, where you can experiment with your machine's movement and weapon capabilities. Robots can be built for either ground or air movement.

You start with very basic movement and chassis cubes for building your robot, but you can take your creation online to battle other bots. This raises your player level and earns a currency called Robopoints. New and higher quality cubes are unlocked from an expansive tech tree as you level up. Once these building blocks are unlocked, you can spend Robopoints to buy as many as you like for your robot. As a free-to-play game, Robocraft has an alternate, paid counterpart called Galaxy Cash that can be used to make the same purchases.

The most common building blocks are chassis cubes, which are used to shape your robot. These cubes feature a wide variety of bevels, curves, and angled edges that promote structural variety. Blocks come with different defense values and aesthetic purposes, too. Windshield cubes can be used create cockpits or windows, but offer very little defense. Basic white blocks offer weak armor and result in a lighter vehicle. Gray blocks are much heavier, ideal for centering the weight of your robot, but not much else. Finally, armor cubes are defensive blocks designed to soak up damage. Movement is determined by movement cubes, which include wheels, walking legs, rotor blades, and so on. Offense is dictated by hardware cubes such as rail cannons, SMGs, and plasma cannons.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that your robot design matters greatly in multiplayer mode. Each of your robot's blocks has it own hit points, and a block is vaporized when destroyed (as is any utility that it possessed). This injects a lot of strategy into the multiplayer, because each block on your opponent's robot is a valuable target. Your enemy can't move if its movement cubes have been shot off, for example. You must consider all of these details when creating your bot as well, so as to maximize defense and mobility without sacrificing offense.

The Faces of Robotic DeathBuilding a robotic war machine is all well and good, but without an environment to play in, your robot is little more than a blocky 3D model. Robocraft gives players several game modes to test their bots. Not only does competitive play highlight the flaws in your design, but it also nets you valuable player levels and Robopoints, which can be used towards improving your bot.

Combat controls use the standard WASD control scheme, with the mouse cursor doubling as an aiming reticle. Movement makes heavy use of the game's physics engine, so depending on how you've decked out your robot, movement can be swift, tank-like, or anything in between. This is not a bad thing, mind you, as beefier robots can generally take more abuse to balance out their speed impediments. Shooting is as easy as pointing and clicking, though you will need to take firing rate into consideration during hectic fights. Some weapons even accommodate zooming, letting you pick off opponents from across the map. All in all, the combat mechanics are straightforward, but highly satisfying.

Robocraft's team deathmatch divides players into two teams and lets them duke it out on an expansive frozen or desert map. Each team has a base, which can be captured by standing in it for a minute. You win by either capturing the base or by defeating all opposing players. Because there are no respawns in team death-match, games are quick and challenging.

Battle mode is a more strategic, MOBA-like game match. Players are still divided into two teams, but the focus is overtaking your opponent's towers and base, rather than destroying your opponent. You will respawn if your robot is destroyed, but the time penalty is increased as the match goes on. You also earn a boost, called Overclocking, when you successfully destroy opponents or towers. This boost climbs in level the more efficiently you fight, and improves your fire rate and defense.

Challenge Battle is a spin on team death-match, and pits twelve low-tier robots against four high-tier ones. Winning conditions are the same as team death-match, but the level difference between teams encourages a high amount of coordination.

Team synergy is important in multiplayer, because efficient play generally nets you more experience and Robopoints. Robocraft doesn't have an in-game chat system, but you can use Curse Voice VoIP to speak with other players.

Earning points through multiplayer is very important if you want to avoid purchasing items with real cash. Unfortunately, multiplayer sessions can be unpredictable at times. It can take a long time, sometimes over five minutes or so, for a lobby to fill up and a match to start. This wouldn't be too grating if the server system was reliable, but it isn't. I've regularly dropped out of matches and multiplayer queues.

Graphics Options Robocraft is a minimalistic game from a visual standpoint. Screen resolution ranges from 800 by 600p to 1920 by 1080p max. All major visual settings are lumped under a single preset, labeled Quality. At the lowest quality level, the ground textures are simplified into blobs of color and shade. The highest graphical preset improves the draw distance and gives the terrain clearly defined textures, but even then the quality is hardly impressive.

Robocraft makes no real effort to mask its blocky, Lego-like aesthetic, which lends the game its charm. The game doesn't look bad, though the option to adjust shading, texture quality, Vsync, and frame rate independently would be nice to see in the future.

Crafting for Pleasure and DestructionRobocraft is an electronic Lego set that offers great robot-building fun. It's a blast to test your creations in the practice or PvP modes, and then go back to the hangar to tweak the model before sending it out into combat. Robocraft's connection issues are annoying, but it has plenty of content to chew on despite the hiccups.

Read More

About the Author

Gabriel Zamora is as passionate about writing as he is about video games and electronics, and his fervor has led to game and tech article contributions in a variety of online publications including PCMag.com, Examiner.com, 2D-X.com, and Multiplayergames.com. When not criticizing the state of gaming or reviewing tech, Gabriel spends much of his time... See Full Bio

Robocraft (for PC)

Robocraft (for PC)

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.